San Diego has set a high-bar goal to transition to zero-net energy in all new county buildings. So, the county's latest project, the Assessor, Recorder, County Clerk office in Santee needed to meet zero-net energy. Archive facilities are known for high energy usage, but C.W. Driver Cos. rose to the challenge, delivering the first zero-net archive facility in the country and paving the way for like projects in the future.
“With the archival piece of the project, there is a high energy usage,” Andy Feth, project executive at C.W. Driver, tells GlobeSt.com. “The building needs to maintain a constant temperature and energy requirement, and it is a much bigger energy hog than a standard office building. It is really more about a whole building energy optimization. We are trying to fine tune the various pieces with the glazing and the amount of insolation.”
The project is part of a broader plan for the County to become more energy efficient, and while this was a particularly challenging project considering the energy usage of the property, this wasn't C.W. Driver's first zero-net energy office building for the County. “The County of San Diego and the Board of supervisors made a resolution that all new county buildings going forward would be zero-net energy, and this project is a continuation of that commitment,” Feth says. “This is our second zero-net energy building with the county, and we cut our teeth on that last one and learned what it took to achieve that designation.”
Zero-net energy projects have a higher cost, but Feth says that those costs are often offset by the energy savings—at least that is the goal. “You are doing a lot of the same things that you are doing for a LEED project, but the zero-net energy adds that piece of onsite renewable energy and systems to generate energy onsite,” he says. “The higher costs mostly come from that piece of it.”
This could be the beginning of a bigger trend in California or even nationally for both public agencies and private real estate companies. Feth says there is increased interest in zero-net energy development. “I think this is definitely a direction that more developers are heading,” he explains. “Just like LEED used to be a differentiator for buildings, now it is not so much. Most public agencies are doing LEED-certified at some level. The state has certainly established minimum threshold amount of renewable energy for projects, and so if you look at the lifecycle cost of the building, it makes sense over the long term for a building.”
C.W. Driver has gotten ahead of the trend and has become an expert on this specific development niche. “There is definitely a learning curve and there are some nuanced,” says Feth. “A big part of it is rounding out our team with people that have that same experience.”
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Kelsi Maree Borland
